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Olinowetz' frames

Maria Olinowetz holds the distinction of having been the first female engraver employed for Austrian stamps. Her oeuvre is rather limited though, with only three stamps bearing her name: the 1951 Scout jamboree issue, the 1952 Socialist youth camp issue and the 1958 Choir festival issue.

Olinowetz, born in 1906, started off learning to engrave fire arms, and furthered her artistic studies in Vienna, after which she was employed by the Austrian state printing works. She was noted for her ornamental talents which is why she worked on quite a number of stamps, without given credit through the inclusion of her name on the stamp.

However, thanks to the Michel catalogues, we are able to name at least some of the ornamental work she has done. First of all there's the 1953 set to promote the Vienna Evangelical School rebuilding fund. For this set of five stamps she engraved the frames.

Olinowetz also engraved the frames of the 1955 set marking the tenth anniversary of the re-establishment of the Austrian Republic. A third issue mentioned in the catalogues is the 1956 stamp marking the bicentenary of Mozart's birth.

Looking at what I consider to be her most splendid work, the Scout Jamboree stamp of 1951, I'm amazed she hasn't been given more work to do, but maybe even back then, or maybe even especially back then, competition was cut-throat, especially for a woman?